Isaac and Eli will be transitioning from home school to public school this year, both are soccer enthusiasts, and both just spent a few weeks of this summer at a Marine Corps-style military academy called “Marine Military Academy” in south Texas as an early introduction to military life, which they both very much enjoyed.

As we launched this afternoon the air temperature was 95°F, but just minutes before we got going a nice northeasterly breeze began to blow. This was the stiffest wind we have encountered in the last four days, and as far as the fishing was concerned, it was a welcome game changer.

Just 20 minutes after launching, and 30 to 45 minutes after that breeze began, we found white bass swarming all over a 28 to 32 foot breakline. These fish were bottom-oriented and were spread over a 60 yard area. Although we discovered these as we downrigged into this area, we pulled the downrigging gear out of the water as quickly as possible, e-anchored with the i-Pilot, and used slabs fished vertically to put 52 fish in the boat in the first 80 minutes of our trip.  Using small 3/8 oz. TNT slabs to match the look and size of the small forage fish being fed upon in this area did the trick.

When this action died it marked a slow decline in the fish action for the evening. We never found another group of fish willing to chase and strike our slabs, and therefore wound up downrigging for the remainder of our time on the water, finding an additional 20 fish at two distinct locations.  The go-to setup for this duty was the 3-armed umbrella rig with Pet Spoons attached.

As with many student athletes, Isaac and Eli had excellent coordination and very quickly picked up on how to rig the downrigger. This helped greatly having two capable ‘riggers on board, as it allowed me to steer the boat, focus on sonar, and keep or ‘rigger balls in the fish.  Our results bore this out, as this trip would be the most productive of the entire week.

For our efforts this evening we boated a total of 71 fish including 69 white bass, one channel catfish, and one large mouth bass.